->  DD>> I wasn't speaking of things like Knoppix, I was speaking of
->  DD>> software that has market penetration, not some sluggard
->  DD>> that runs from CD.

->  CA> A 'sluggard' that you are incapable of duplicating.

-> My capabilities at producing a Linux distribution have no relevance to the
-> slowness of a CD based OS.

I loaded the CD into RAM 6 1/2 weeks ago having no hard drive.
The browser, Kwrite ( notepad text type editor), mail, newsgroups
and dialer ALL remain in RAM.
The CD only spins up so infrequently it actually startles me
and then only for about 2-3 seconds.

I've used this Knoppix CD both from RAM and formally installed on a hard
drive and in both cases it's MUCH faster than Win 98 on the same
machine. This is an H.P. 433 Celeron with 256 Meg of RAM.

The dialer is faster logging on, the browser is faster
and it remains stable in RAM for well over a month and counting.

Now I'm not taking sides in an dispute between you and Charles
as to operating systems but just relating my hands on
experience.    
It's a subjective opinion in any case.

->  DD>> Have you tried installing Knoppix on the hard drive? It
->  DD>> gains a shipload of speed, but loses that one thing it has
->  DD>> in its favour, the ability to auto login

You could use cron to call KPPP on a schedule.

->  CA> No, I've not installed KNOPPIX on my hard drive - yet.

-> Why not? If you think it's such a great thing?

-> [...]

->  DD>> Take a stroll out in the real world sometime, where
->  DD>> computers are used in real day to day work, not just some
->  DD>> old nerd at home experimenting with operating systems.

I spent WAY too much time fixing or "experimenting" with
Windows.
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5